Katja Werthmann (born May 11, 1964, in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany) is a German ethnologist with a regional focus on West Africa. She is a professor for 'Society, politics and economy of Africa' at the Institute for African Studies at the University of Leipzig. K. Werthmann conducts research in Anglophone and Francophone Africa (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Nigeria) on the handling of material and symbolic resources in the context of spatial and social mobility in contemporary Africa. She has made contributions to political, economic, religious and urban ethnology. After the Doctorate at the Freie Universität Berlin and the Habilitation at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz[1] she taught at universities in Germany (Frankfurt/Main, Mainz, Halle/Saale), Switzerland (Zürich) and Sweden (Uppsala). Since 2012 she has been a university professor at the University of Leipzig.[2][3]
After graduating from high school in 1983, Katja Werthmann began studying German Studies and Art History at the University of Marburg (1983–1984) and then Cultural Anthropology and European ethnology, with the subsidiary subjects historical ethnology and African linguistics. She graduated with a Magister artium (M.A., 1990). From 1988 to 1990 she prepared herself through Swahili and Hausa language courses in Kenya and Nigeria (funded by the DAAD) for their field research. A graduate scholarship from the DAAD enabled her to do sixteen months of field research in Nigeria, which formed the basis for her dissertation on the everyday life of Muslim women in a neighborhood in Kano. A doctoral scholarship from the Evangelisches Studienwerk, Villigst e. V. resulted in her doctorate in 1996 at the Institute for Ethnology at the Freie Universität Berlin (FU-Berlin). From January 1997 to December 2001, she was a research associate at the Institute for Historical Ethnology at the University Frankfurt. From 1997 to 2001, she conducted twelve-month field research in Burkina Faso within the SFB 268.
Werthmann considers African Studies as a regional science with historical responsibility. She and her research team are interdisciplinary in the humanities and social sciences. Since 2002 she has conducted research projects on gold mining, city life and vigilantess.[4]
From 1997 to 2001, Werthmann worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Historical Ethnology at Goethe University, where she was involved in Sonderforschungsbereich (SFB) 268 "Cultural Development and Language History in the Natural Space of the West African Savannah". In this context, she spent 12 months researching land rights, settlement history and artisanal gold mining in south-west of Burkina Faso. From 2002 to 2010 she worked at the Institute for Anthropology and African Studies at the University of Mainz. There she habilitated in 2004 with a thesis on the economic, social, and cultural aspects of gold mining in Burkina Faso.[citation needed]
She examined the effects of German development cooperation using the examples of smallholders in a development project in Burkina Faso and local self-government in Cameroon. Between 2010 and 2012, Werthmann taught at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, the University of Zurich (Switzerland), and the University of Uppsala (Sweden). Since August 2012, she has been a university professor for African society, politics, and economics at the socio-scientifically oriented Institute for African Studies at the University of Leipzig.
Furthermore, Werthmann investigated the effects of an agricultural development project (A.V.V., Aménagement des Vallées des Voltas') established in the 1970s and funded by the GTZ, in the course of which farmers from the central parts of the country were relocated to the southwest. Further research focuses were discourses on land rights and "autochthony" as well as on the social relationships between native and immigrant project farmers. In addition, she conducted research in the SFB follow-up project A9 "Land acquisition. Spatial appropriation and local identity in south-west Burkina Faso" with a focus on the effects of massive immigration as a result of the increase in non-industrial gold mining.
Werthmann was a member of the editorial board of the Africa Spectrum from 2004 to 2015. She is currently a member of the editorial board of Sociologus and the book series "African Social Studies" at Brill (publisher). She has been an active member of the board and main committee of the de: Vereinigung für Afrikawissenschaften in Deutschland e.V. (VAD) since 2004 and was the main organizer of the VAD conference "African Connections" in Leipzig in 2018.
(2017): The drawbacks of privatization: Artisanal gold mining in Burkina Faso 1986–2016, Resources Policy, vol. 52, pp. 418–426
2016: "Die tanzende Sonne: Frauenlieder in Westafrika". In: Geert Castryck, Silke Strickrodt & Katja Werthmann (Hg.), Sources and Methods for African History and Culture. Essays in Honour of Adam Jones. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 393–409.
2014: "Sind Städte in Afrika ‚unkennbar'? Ethnologische Stadtforschung in Afrika". Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 139, 2, 159–178.
2014: "Local Religion or Cult-Shopping? A Sacrificial Site in Burkina Faso". Anthropos 109, 399–409.
2011: "Die Dyula in Burkina Faso: von vorkolonialer Elite zu ethnopolitischem Verein". In: Nikolaus Schareika, Eva Spies & Pierre-Yves Le Meur (Hg.): Auf dem Boden der Tatsachen. Festschrift für Thomas Bierschenk. Köln: Köppe, 289–309.
2009: "Working in a Boom-Town: Female Perspectives on Gold-Mining in Burkina Faso". Resources Policy 34, 18–23.
2008: "Islam on Both Sides: Religion and Locality in Western Burkina Faso". In: Samuli Schielke & Georg Stauth (Hg.): Dimensions of Locality: The Making and Remaking of Islamic Saints and their Places. Bielefeld: transcript, 125–148.
2008: "'Frivolous Squandering'. Consumption and Redistribution in Mining Camps". In: Jon Abbink & André van Dokkum (Hg.): Dilemmas of Development. Conflicts of Interest and their Resolutions in Modernizing Africa. Leiden: African Studies Centre, 60–76.
2007: "Islam in Afrika. Ein Überblick". In: Thomas Bierschenk & Marion Fischer (Hg.): Islam und Entwicklung in Afrika. Köln: Köppe, 37–50.
2006: "Gold Diggers, Earth Priests, and District Heads: Land Rights and Gold Mining in South-Western Burkina Faso". In: Richard Kuba & Carola Lentz (Hg.): Landrights and the Politics of Belonging in West Africa. Leiden: Brill, 119–136.
2005: "Wer sind die Dyula? Ethnizität und Bürgerkrieg in der Côte d'Ivoire". Afrika Spectrum 40, 2, 221–240.
2004 (mit Richard Kuba, Andrea Reikat, Andrea Wenzek): "Erdherren und Einwanderer: Bodenrecht in Burkina Faso". In: Klaus Dieter Albert, Doris Löhr & Katharina Neumann (Hg.): Mensch und Natur in Westafrika. Ergebnisse aus dem Sonderforschungsbereich 268 "Kulturentwicklung und Sprach-geschichte im Naturraum Westafrikanische Savannne". Weinheim: Wiley-VCH, 373–399.
2003: "'Ils sont venus comme une nuée de sauterelles': chercheurs d'or dans un village au sud-ouest du Burkina Faso". In: Richard Kuba, Carola Lentz & Claude Nurukyor Somda (Hg.): Histoire du peuplement et relations interethniques au Burkina Faso. Paris: Karthala, 97–110.
2003: "The President of the Gold Diggers: Sources of Power in a Gold Mine in Burkina Faso". Ethnos 68(1): 95–111.
(2003): Cowries, Gold and 'Bitter Money' Gold-Mining and Notions of Ill-Gotten Wealth in Burkina Faso.Paideuma: Mitteilungen zur Kulturkunde, vol. 49, pp. 105–124
2002: "Matan Bariki, 'Women of the Barracks'. Muslim Hausa Women in an Urban Neighbourhood in Northern Nigeria". Africa 72(1): 112–130.
2001 (mit Modeste Somé & Andrea Wilhelmi): "'Il y a l'entente comme il y a la mésentente'. Vingt ans de cohabitation entre Dagara et Mossi dans les anciens villages A.V.V.". In: Richard Kuba, Carola Lentz & Katja Werthmann (Hg.): Les Dagara et leurs voisins. Histoire de peuplement et relations interethniques au sud-ouest du Burkina Faso. Frankfurt/Main: Berichte des Sonderforschungsbereichs 268, Bd. 15, 159–178.
(2000): Gold rush in West Africa. The appropriation of 'natural' resources: non-industrial gold mining in Burkina Faso. Sociologus 50:1, 90–104
(1995): Die Frauen der Barracks. Identitätsmanagement in einer nordnigerianischen Großstadt. Sociologus 45(2), 169–180 (1995)
